Professor John Drakakis

About me

M.A., B.A. (Wales), Ph.D. (Leeds), Dip.Ed. FEA
I was appointed to Stirling in 1970, some three years after the University had opened. Before that I took my B.A. and M.A. at Cardiff, and Dip.Ed at Exeter. I later obtained my Ph.D from Leeds.
Since arriving at Stirling I have taught and continue to teach undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, and Renaissance Literature, and in Critical Theory. I was also one of the founder members of the Department of Film and Media Studies, and was Chair of the committee when it became a full department of the University in 1985.
I have delivered lectures on Renaissance Drama in a number of countries across the world, and have examined courses and postgraduate dissertations in a number of University English Departments. I have also successfully supervised a number of Ph.D theses in Renaissance Literature, Modern Drama and Critical Theory.

Research

My research interests are primarily in seventeenth-century textual bibliography, Shakespeare, Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Renaissance literature, critical theory, and modern drama and media and cultural studies.
I have published articles and chapters on Shakespeare, Elizabethan and Jacobean literature and drama; modern drama; media studies; modern critical theory and cultural studies, introductory studies of Shakespeare's Othello (1980) and Much Ado About Nothing (1981). I was the editor of and contributor to British Radio Drama (1981); Alternative Shakespeares (1985); Shakespearean Tragedy, Longman Critical Reader series (1998); Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, New Casebook series (1994); Richard III, Shakespeare Originals series (1996); Tragedy, Longman Critical Reader series (1998).
My current work in progress is the New Arden Shakespeare edition of The Merchant of Venice, a book entitled Shakespearean Discourses, and the topic of Republicanism in Shakespeare.
I welcome applications from potential research students in any of the areas outlined above.
I was the General editor of the Routledge English Texts, and am currently the General Editor of the Routledge New Critical Idiom Series.
I am a member of the editorial boards of Textual Practice, Critical Survey, and The Journal of Social Semiotics. I am also an elected Fellow of English Association and the Academia Europoea, and I hold an honorary degree from Glyndwr University, Wrexham